TO KEEP THE FLAG FLYING.
“Mab!” Mabel awoke from her uneasy slumbers to wonder where she was,
and why Georgia was sitting there, her face silhouetted against the
square of grey light that represented a window. “Mab! Dick is not
dead.”
“Why--oh, Georgie!--have you heard anything?”
“No; but I know it. We always agreed that if either of us died when
the other was not there, the one that was dead should come back to say
good-bye. And I have waited for him all night, and he has not come.”
Mabel gazed at her in dismay. “Oh, but you are not building upon that,
Georgie? How can it be any proof that he is alive? He might not be
allowed to come.”
“He promised. Besides, I know he is alive,” persisted Georgia
obstinately. “If he was dead, I should feel it.”
“Georgie dear, you mustn’t go on like this. You will make yourself
ill. Come and lie down a little, and try to go to sleep. I will tell
you if he comes.” Mabel ended with a sob.
“If he does, I shall know,” murmured Georgia, as she lay down.
“Thanks, Mab; I am so tired.”
Mabel waited only until she was asleep, and then, summoning Rahah to
watch beside her, went in search of Dr Tighe. It so happened that she
met him in the passage which led into the courtyard.
“Bad business this, Miss North. We can ill spare your brother. How is
his poor wife?”
“She has borne up wonderfully so far, but--oh, Dr Tighe, I’m afraid
her mind is going. She will persist that Dick is not dead.”
“Poor thing! can’t realise it yet,” said the doctor compassionately.
“No; it is quite a delusion. She says he is still alive, or she would
know it. What can we do? I thought perhaps if she could see his
body----”
“No, no. Better that the delusion should last for ever than she should
see his body after those fiends have had to do with it.”
“But she must give up hope soon, and it will be such a fearful
disappointment----”
“If the hope keeps her up through the next few days, so much the
better. Afterwards, please God, she’ll have more effectual comfort
than we could give her.”
“But I can’t help hoping too, and it will make the reality so much
worse,” confessed Mabel, with an irrepressible sob.
“Woman alive! who cares about you?” cried the doctor furiously. “What
do your little bits of feelings matter compared with hers? No, no; I
beg your pardon, Miss North,” his tone softening. “I’d get a fine
wigging if the Commissioner heard me, wouldn’t I? But you must
remember how much you have got left, and your sister has nothing. For
God’s sake, let her please herself with thinking that he’s all right
for the present, if that comforts her at all. By-and-by the truth will
come to her gradually, but she will have the child to think of, and
the worst bitterness will be gone. Come, now, you’re brave enough for
that, aren’t you? How is she--asleep just now? I’ll look in again
later on. Now make up your mind to be unselfish about this.”
“Does he mean that generally I am selfish?” mused Mabel. “It never
struck me before. But nobody seems to care about me. They all think
that I have Eustace left. As if he could ever make up to me for Dick!”
she laughed mirthlessly at the mere idea. “He will be coming in
presently and making appropriate remarks. Oh dear, oh dear! if he had
gone to the durbar and been killed instead of Dick, I believe I should
have been _glad_. How dreadful it is! How can I ever marry him? But I
know I shall never have the courage to tell him I want to give him up.
What can I do?”
“Mabel, my poor little girl!” Mr Burgrave emerged from the passage,
and limped towards her as she stood listlessly on the verandah. “You
have slept badly, I fear? How is Mrs North?”
“She won’t believe that he is dead.” And with her eyes full of tears,
Mabel repeated to him Georgia’s words.
“Very touching, very touching!” remarked the Commissioner, his tone
breathing the deepest sympathy. “Poor thing! it is unspeakably sad to
see so strong a mind overthrown. You must find it very trying, poor
child! I hope you are taking care of yourself?” His glance travelled
over her, and Mabel remembered for the first time that she had slept
in her clothes, and that her hair had not been touched since she had
twisted it up roughly the night before on the first alarm.
“Oh, I know I’m not fit to be seen!” she cried impatiently. “But what
does that signify?”
“It signifies very much. You must remember the natives in the fort.
Their endurance--even their loyalty--may hang upon our success in
keeping up appearances during the next few days. And we white men,
also--surely it is a poor compliment to us to make such a sorry
ob--figure--of yourself? Then there is your unfortunate sister. Is it
likely to restore her mental balance to see you in such a dishevelled
condition? Oblige me by changing your dress and doing something to
your hair. It is a public duty at such a time.”
“I wish you wouldn’t bother!” said Mabel, weeping weakly. “I have no
black things, and I can’t bear to put on colours.”
“My dear girl, is it for me to advise you as to your clothes?” The
tone, half severe and half humorous, stung Mabel with a recollection
of their conversation of ten days before. “Considering poor Mrs
North’s delusion, might it not be advisable to humour her, in so far
as not to insist upon wearing mourning immediately?”
“Oh, very well,” was the grudging reply, of which Mabel repented the
next moment, adding contritely, “I’m sorry to have been so cross,
Eustace. I will try to be brave.”
“That is what I expect of my little girl. She would never bring
discredit upon my choice by showing the white feather. I rely upon her
to set an example of cheerfulness to the whole garrison.”
He bestowed upon her what Mabel inwardly stigmatised as a lofty kiss
of encouragement before departing, and she obeyed him meekly, going at
once to her room to change her dress. She was so angry with herself
for having deserved his rebuke that she forgot to be angry with him.
After all, it was well for her to have this severe master to please,
if she was in danger of bringing reproach upon her country by her
faint-heartedness. She was taking herself to task in this strain, when
the sound of voices in the outermost of Georgia’s two rooms, which was
next to her own, interrupted her meditations.
“Oh dear! Georgie hasn’t slept long,” she lamented to herself. “Who is
that talking to her, I wonder? Oh, Mr Anstruther, of course.”
“I came in to see if there was anything I could do for you,” she heard
Fitz say. “I’m ashamed to have been so long in coming, but the fact
is, I was up all night knocking down houses and setting coolies to
cart away the remains, and when we had got the space all round pretty
clear and came in, I was so dead tired that I just lay down and went
to sleep where I was.”
“Oh, you should have gone on resting while you had the chance,” said
Georgia. “Everybody is only too kind to me, and there’s nothing I want
done. Then we are really besieged now?”
“I suppose we might say that we are in a state of siege. At present
all the tribes are holding _jirgahs_ to consider the matter. Our outer
circle of vedettes was driven in soon after we got here last night,
but we held the houses facing the fort against a few spasmodic rushes
until we had got the zone of fire cleared. The enemy are too close for
comfort as it is, but at any rate they have a space to cross before
they can get up to the walls.”
“Then they are occupying the town?”
“Decidedly, if that means looting all the houses and firing most of
them.”
“Is our house burnt?”
“Almost as soon as you were out of it. I noticed the fire when I
looked round once as we were driving. But I don’t think the enemy can
have been as close behind us as that. I fancy the servants who shirked
coming with us were looting, and some one had knocked over a lamp.”
“And how are things going with us here?”
“So-so. But you know, Mrs North, if it hadn’t been for the Major and
Colonel Graham, we might as well have taken refuge in a fowl-house as
in this place. Long ago they got in all the stores they could without
attracting attention, and everything else was ready to be moved at a
moment’s notice. They had their plans all cut and dried, too, and
every man found his post assigned to him. The walls are good against
anything but artillery, and the towers and loopholes and gates have
all been put into some sort of repair.”
“Yes,” said Georgia, “and that is the best of the situation. Now for
the worst.”
“Well, you know, it would all have been worst but for the Major, and
every soul inside the walls is blessing him. The worst is that we have
scraped together a preposterous number of non-combatants--some of them
the wives and children of the sowars, of course, but a good many of
them Hindus and bazaar-people of that sort, whom it would have been
sheer murder to leave outside, but who will be no good to us whatever.
All the old soldiers have been re-enlisted, and the boys are to make
themselves useful, but there is a helpless crowd of women and children
and elderly people to dispose of somehow. That’s the secret of your
close quarters here. We can’t have the poor wretches anywhere near the
walls, so they are put away in the central courts, where we can keep
an eye upon them, and overawe them if necessary.”
“Poor things! I must go and see after them,” murmured Georgia.
“Of course, with all these extra mouths, we are not provisioned for a
regular siege, unless we eat the horses, which ought to be saved in
case we have to cut our way out at last. But the worst thing is that
we have no artillery, not so much as a field-gun, and very little of
anything else. The regiment have their carbines, of course, but the
Commissioner’s Sikhs are the only men with rifles--except those of us
who go in for big game shooting. However, as a set-off against that,
the enemy have no big guns either. And then, it’s about the best
season of the year for moving troops on this frontier, so that we
ought to be relieved before very long.”
“But that’s only if the enemy don’t cut the canals.”
“Yes, I’m afraid they’re too sharp not to do that. It looks as if a
dust-storm was coming on, which would help them if they set to work at
once.”
“Have they made any pretence of offering terms?”
“The Amir sent his mullah this morning with a flag of truce. He
couldn’t be allowed inside, so the Commissioner and Colonel Graham
spoke to him from the walls. But there was no accepting what he
offered.”
“What was it?”
“Poor old Ashraf Ali was awfully cut up about--what happened
yesterday. He explained through the mullah that he arranged the
ambuscade entirely for the benefit of the Commissioner, whom he really
was anxious to have out of the way. It was a pure accident that the
very last thing he could have wished happened instead. However, in
order that his trouble mightn’t be wasted, he suggested that we should
hand him over the Commissioner now. He will see that he gives no more
trouble on this frontier, and it is open to the rest of us either to
stay here unmolested, or to return to civilisation under a
safe-conduct, just as we like.”
“You mean that he actually offers to guarantee the safety of every one
else if the Commissioner gives himself up?”
“Practically that. Doesn’t it strike you as a little quaint?”
“Was that the Commissioner’s view of it?”
“I believe so. He remarked what a preposterous demand it was, when he
had the responsibility of the fort and the whole community on his
shoulders. He doesn’t intend to shirk his duty. The Colonel said it
was a tremendous relief to hear how sensibly he took it. Some men
would have insisted on giving themselves up forthwith, but he has too
much to think of.”
A wan smile showed itself on Georgia’s face. “Well, if he intends to
interpret his duty very strictly, we may wish he had gone,” she said.
“I don’t believe he is even technically in the right, and certainly I
think the Colonel will have to organise a little mutiny if he insists
upon bossing the show. Couldn’t you turn on Miss North to induce him
to moderate his pretensions a bit?” Mabel, in the next room, shook her
fist unseen at the speaker.
“After all,” said Georgia, “it’s most unlikely that they would have
kept their promise to protect us, even if he had given himself up.”
“Very little doubt about that. From what the mullah said, it’s clear
that there are two parties in their camp, and I shouldn’t care to say
which is the stronger. Bahram Khan’s following, besides his own men,
who did all the looting last night, comprises the more troublesome of
the frontier tribes and the chiefs who have grudges against the Amir,
while Ashraf Ali has his loyal Sardars and the tribes which have
always been friendly to us. If only we had the Major here!”
“You mean that he would play them off against one another?”
“Yes, and there’s no one else to do it. Beltring and I wanted to try,
because there’s just the chance that the tribes would listen to us, as
we have been with him so much, but the Colonel won’t let us leave the
fort.”
“No, it would be no good. You would only be risking your lives
uselessly,” said Georgia. “He has more influence over them than any
man I ever knew, except my father.”
“Ah, but, Mrs North, there’s no time to lose. As soon as we have
killed two or three of the lot, they’ll all be against us, and the
longer we hold out the worse it will be. Even if Bahram Khan doesn’t
succeed in bringing them over to his side at once, he will be
intriguing against his uncle in secret.”
“I know, but what can we do? I dare not make inquiries about Dick, for
if the Amir is keeping him safe somewhere, it might put him into
Bahram Khan’s power. We can only wait.”
“Oh, Mrs North, don’t count on that,” pleaded Fitz sorrowfully. “It’s
no good, believe me. Ashraf Ali knows he is dead as well as we do.”
“But I know that he is not dead,” said Georgia, and Fitz went out
hastily. In the verandah he met Mabel.
“Oh, Miss North, I wanted to speak to you,” he said, but she beckoned
him imperiously aside.
“You seem to think it rather a fine thing to abuse a man who isn’t
there to defend himself,” she said.
“Indeed?” he said, in astonishment. “I wasn’t aware of it.”
“Perhaps you didn’t know that I could hear you when you were laughing
at Mr Burgrave?”
“I certainly didn’t know you were listening, but I was not laughing at
him. I merely said that he hadn’t given himself up. Would you wish me
to say that he had?”
“You hinted that it was wrong and cowardly of him, and that he was
saving himself at the expense of every one else here, when you ought
to know it was only his strong sense of duty that kept him back. Would
you have gone?”
“Certainly not, if the burden of the defence rested on me, as the
Commissioner fancies it does on him.”
“You see! And you said yourself it would probably have been no good.”
“So I say still. Bahram Khan has more on hand than a piece of private
revenge. If we trusted to his safe-conduct, we should be in for
Cawnpore over again.”
“And after that you still make fun of Mr Burgrave for not going! It’s
a shame! I know he has made mistakes in the past, from our point of
view, but I won’t hear him called a coward. He is the most noble,
lofty-minded man in the world, and I only wish I was more worthy of
him!”
“You can’t expect me to indorse that, any more than the Commissioner
himself would,” said Fitz. “If anything I have said about him has
pained you, Miss North, I humbly beg your pardon; but please remember
that I should never speak against him intentionally, simply because
you think so highly of him.”
“I only want you to understand that I am not going to ask him to
moderate his pretensions, as you call it,” went on Mabel, rather
confused. “For one thing, he wouldn’t do it, and for another, now that
Dick is gone, I must be guided by him.”
“Quite so,” said Fitz, somewhat dryly. Then his tone changed. “I
wanted to ask you what you thought about telling poor Mrs North
something the mullah said this morning. It struck me that perhaps we
ought to keep it dark for a bit, as the doctor thinks it a good thing
she can’t believe that the worst has happened. The poor old Amir wept
as if for his own son when he heard that the Major was dead, and went
himself to look for the body, intending to give it a state funeral.
But when they got to the pass, it was gone. The Hasrat Ali Begum, who
was in camp near, had broken _pardah_ with her women as soon as the
fight was over, and carried off the body and buried it. They were
afraid of what Bahram Khan would do with it, you see, and at present
they won’t tell even the Amir where the grave is, but he sent word
that he meant to build a tomb over it later on. Now, ought Mrs North
to know?”
“I shouldn’t think so, should you? I have never been much with people
in trouble--I don’t know how to deal with them. But I think it will be
better not to tell her unless she asks.”
“But she isn’t likely to ask, is she? Oh, Miss North, if she might
only be right! I don’t believe there’s a man in the fort that wouldn’t
gladly die to bring him back.”
The expected dust-storm did not begin until the afternoon, and in the
interval the besieged continued to strengthen their defences,
disturbed only by an intermittent rifle-fire. A party of the enemy had
taken possession of General Keeling’s old house, and lying down behind
the low wall which surrounded the roof, were firing at any one they
saw on the ramparts. Thanks to the efforts of Colonel Graham and Dick,
the ruined parapet here had been repaired, but when there were
messages to be sent from one point to another, the cry was “Heads
down!” So skilfully were the enemy posted that no response to their
annoying attentions was possible until a party of Sikhs, at
considerable risk to life and limb, scaled the turrets flanking the
gateway, the repair of which had not been completed owing to lack of
time, and succeeded in commanding the roof of the old house. They had
scarcely cleared it before the storm came on, and they were ordered
down again, since it was generally believed that an assault would be
attempted under cover of the wind and darkness. Nothing of the kind
took place, however, and the garrison, who were kept under arms,
chafed at their enforced inaction, and tried in vain to pierce the
obscurity which surrounded them, while the wind howled and the dust
rattled on the roofs. When, last of all, the rain poured down in
sheets, and the air cleared sufficiently to allow the buildings beyond
the zone of fire to become dimly visible, it was seen that the enemy
had taken advantage of the storm for a different purpose. On the roof
of General Keeling’s house was now a rough stone breastwork, so
constructed as to shelter its occupants even against the fire from the
towers, and provided with loopholes so arranged as to allow the barrel
of a rifle to be pointed through them in any direction.
“It looks to me as though we should have to rush the General’s house
and blow it up,” said the Commissioner to Colonel Graham, as they
stood in one of the turrets, peering into the sweeping rain, during
the last few minutes of daylight. “That sangar makes our walls
untenable.”
“Then we shall have to raise them,” was the laconic reply, as Colonel
Graham passed his field-glass to his companion. “You may not have
noticed that though the General’s old stone house is the only one
strong enough to support a sangar on the roof, the brick houses on
both sides of it have been loop-holed. The place is a regular
death-trap.”
“Do you mean to say that in this short time they have prepared a
position impregnable to our whole force?” asked Mr Burgrave
incredulously.
“Quite possibly, but that isn’t the question. Their numbers are
practically unlimited; ours are not. I should be glad if you and I
could come to an understanding at once. We are not here to exhibit
feats of arms, but to keep the flag flying until we can be relieved,
and to protect the unfortunate women and children down below there.
Nothing would please me better than to lead an assault on the house
yonder, but who’s to defend the fort when the butcher’s bill is paid?
If we had only ourselves to consider, I might cut my way out with the
troops, and make a historic march to Rahmat-Ullah, but with the
non-combatants it would be impossible. You see this?--or perhaps you
don’t see it, but I do. Well, are we to work together, or not?”
“You are asking me to subordinate my judgment to yours?”
“Politically, you are supreme here. From a military point of view----”
“You think you ought to be? Considering the office I hold, doesn’t
that strike you as rather a large order?”
“Would you propose to occupy an independent and superior position from
which to criticise my measures? Surely you must see that is out of the
question? You may be Commissioner for the province, but I am
commandant of this fort, and the troops are under my orders. The
conclusion is pretty obvious, isn’t it? In such a situation as this, a
single head is essential, and there must be no hint of divided
counsels. You and I have both got everything we prize in the world at
stake here. Can we squabble over our relative positions in face of
what lies before us?”
“The question would come more gracefully from me to you, in the
circumstances,” said Mr Burgrave, “but I see your point. Let it be
understood that the conduct of all military operations is vested in
you, then. I reserve, of course, the right of private criticism, and
of offering advice.”
“And of putting the blame on me if things go wrong!” thought Colonel
Graham, but he was too wise to give utterance to the remark. “Do you
care to make the round of the defences with me?” he asked. “I should
like to see how the new brickwork stands this deluge.”
As they emerged from the shelter of the tower into the rainy dusk,
they were met by Fitz, who, like the other civilians in the place, had
enrolled himself as a volunteer. When he first spoke, his voice was
inaudible, owing to a rushing, roaring sound which filled the air.
“Why, what’s this?” shouted the Colonel.
“The canal, sir,” answered Fitz, as loudly. “Winlock sent me to ask
you to come and look at it.”
“Is it in flood? Can the reservoir have burst?”
“We think the enemy have opened the sluices. The dead body of a white
man was washed down just now. We saw it, though we couldn’t reach it,
and some one said it was Western, who was in charge at the canal
works.”
The Colonel and Mr Burgrave hurried along the rampart, sheltered from
the enemy’s fire by the gathering darkness, to the rear wall of the
fort, the base of which was washed by the canal. The canal itself was
part of the great system of irrigation-works by means of which, as the
Commissioner had once complained, General Keeling had made Khemistan.
A huge reservoir was constructed in the hills to receive the torrents
of water which rushed down every ravine after a storm, and which,
after carrying ruin and destruction in their path, ran fruitlessly to
waste. By means of sluices the outflow was regulated with the minutest
care, and the precious water husbanded so jealously that even in the
hottest seasons it was possible to supply the canal which, with its
many effluents, had converted the immediate surroundings of Alibad
from a sandy waste into a garden. In view of the possible necessity of
coping with an occasional rush of water, the banks were artificially
raised, and the one opposite the south-west angle of the fort, where
the canal took a sudden bend, had been strengthened to a considerable
height with masonry, to protect the cultivated land beyond it from
inundation. This change in its course largely increased the force of
the current at this point.
After a storm the placid canal always became a rushing torrent, on
account of the accessions it received after leaving the reservoir, but
none of those in the fort had ever seen it rise to the height it had
reached on the present occasion. Colonel Graham uttered an exclamation
of dismay when he looked out over the turbid stream, which seemed to
be flung back from the opposite bank against the fort wall with even
increased violence. Presently there was a lull in the storm, and by
the aid of a lantern, which was lowered from the rampart, he was able
to see that the current was actually scouring away the lower courses
of the wall. The next moment the lantern was violently swept from the
hand of the man who held the cord, as another rush of water came
swirling round the tower at the angle of the wall, dashing its spray
into the faces of the watchers. Every one of them felt the wall shake
under the blow, and there was a murmur of uneasiness. Colonel Graham
recovered himself first.
“Turn out all the servants and coolies, Winlock,” he said, “and shore
up the wall with props and sand-bags as far as possible. We will stay
here and watch whether the water rises any higher. It’s clear they
hope that this south curtain will go,” he added to Mr Burgrave, “and
that then they will only have to walk in.”
“They must have a clever head among them,” said the Commissioner; “for
they are evidently letting the water out a little at a time.”
“Ah, that’s the native engineer, no doubt. They would keep him alive
to manage the machinery for them when they murdered poor Western. Look
out, here’s another!”
Again the wall trembled perceptibly, but by this time the courtyard
was full of eager workers, piling up earth and stones and beams and
bags of sand, and anything else that could be found. Presently the
Colonel called out to them to stop, for there was now the danger that
the wall might fall outwards instead of inwards, and they waited in
unwilling idleness, while the two men on the rampart watched the
current anxiously, and measured the distance of its surface from the
parapet. Then came a more violent rush of water than any before, and
to Colonel Graham and Mr Burgrave the wall seemed to rock backwards
and forwards under them. When they looked into each other’s faces once
more, they could scarcely believe that it was still standing.
“That’s the last, evidently,” said the Colonel, “a final effort. The
water’s getting lower already. We’re safe for to-night, but if they
had only had the patience to wait till this rain was over, we could
never have stood the force of water they could have turned on. And as
it is, a child’s popgun might almost account for this bit of wall
now.”